The grinding harmonics of the engines receded as the turbines wound to a stop. The world became blissfully quiet once again, and now other sounds reached the cockpit. In the passenger cabin the doctors began slamming their luggage around. Someone outside began pounding a rifle butt against the airframe with slow, solid strokes. O’Brien released his harnesses, gripped the overhead bar and hauled himself out of the seat.
“Those soldiers are going to punch a hole in the fuselage,” Lucy said with alarm.
He stepped back to the entry door. “They’re morons.” He pulled the lever that extended the recessed boarding steps. The door was next, and it swung open with a tug on the long handle.
The heat and humidity hit him. The atmosphere was worse than he remembered, and the view from the opening did not impress him. Dozens of rifle barrels, the black muzzles reflecting dully in the bright sun, were pointed his way. One brainless teenager could put him permanently to rest with a single pull on a trigger.
“You will put your hands in the air and move carefully down the steps,” an older soldier instructed in a loud voice. The man had a peculiar accent halfway between French and British.
“I am not armed,” O’Brien replied, with a touch of command in his voice. He sensed incremental movement in the crowd, a stiffening of their postures, as if an answer was not expected. One filthy-looking kid brought his assault rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.
“He’s with me,” Gary Starr said in deep gravel tones from behind him. He pushed to the front, authoritative and officious, as if he was used to being obeyed.
The officer moved forward. “If you do not raise your hands and step to the tarmac my soldiers may be advised to fire. Do you understand that? You have arrived here without proper clearance and you will come with us.”
“I’ll speak to Major Koroma about this,” Starr informed the man. “This is a scheduled arrival of medical supplies. If you value your present position you’ll withdraw your troops. Is that clear?”
The soldiers looked at their officer, who in turn glanced about and moderated his stance. The name Koroma evidently carried some weight.
Starr continued, “A convoy of Land Rovers from the UN mission will be approaching from the perimeter road. You will allow them to off-load the supplies and take us into the city.” He waited a beat and then added, “I’ll inform Jusufu Koroma that you have been extremely alert and responsive guarding the airport.”
Lucy poked her blond head into the doorway. Mild astonishment seemed to ripple through the group. The soldiers turned to each other and began talking rapidly.
“This is the co-pilot of the airplane,” O’Brien said, in a heightened voice to the rabble. It was one of the more peculiar introductions he had made.
Lucy saluted. “Hi folks.”
The officer in charge removed his cap and pointed at Lucy. After a moment he began laughing. The others followed suit.
Starr looked at Lucy. “Hi folks?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And are they laughing with me or at me. I could get pissed if I thought the latter.”
“Jeez, Lu, maybe it’s the latter,” O’Brien said.
“Whatever,” Starr interjected. “I think we’ve diffused the situation. Thanks to this lovely co-pilot.”
Lucy took a breath. “Doctor Starr, please call me Lucy.”
He smiled. “Call me Gary.”
O’Brien kept an eye on the soldiers. “If we could postpone the dating game for a more opportune moment…”
“Sure,” the big doctor replied. “In fact, I see the UN vehicles coming toward us now.”
5
Bertholdt Schoenfeld stared hard at the third cello. He hoped that his look translated what he felt. He could easily tighten his hands around her stringy neck and watch her eyes pop out underneath her spiky, purple hair, except that would leave the string section one short. Gott Sei Dank this was a rehearsal, otherwise...
He slapped his wand on the podium and the concert hall went quiet immediately: no chairs scrapping, no valves clicking, no whispered asides. Silence.
Schoenfeld leaned toward the pathetic girl. “Würden Sie Bitte uns folgen, vielleicht einmal.” If she couldn’t follow the rest of the orchestra in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Fifth—the most straightforward of all modern symphonies—then he would strangle the bitch.
She blinked in astonishment and looked back at him with perplexed, bovine eyes, one of which was partially veiled by a silver ring pierced through an eyebrow. He’d seen more intelligence in a fish head.
“Entschuldigung, Herr Conductor! Es tut mir sehr leid.” Her head bobbed up and down as she apologized.
Schoenfeld ran a hand through his hair and looked at his wristwatch, a handsome gold Journe Chronométre that had recently caught his eye. The timepiece went well with his customary dark suit, elegantly cut by the Italians. German tailors were adequate, but they tended to fashion heavier plackets, and they layered biases in ways that interfered with the natural drape of the suit. His stance and his tall form fit more naturally inside an Italian suit and gave him the appearance of a symphony orchestra conductor, which was what he was.
Another hour of rehearsal would be a waste of time. This was enough, especially for a Monday. “Also, bis Mittwoch,” he informed the assembled musicians in a loud voice. He glanced sideways at the stupid bitch again and left the podium. If she was not prepared by mid-week she would find herself in more trouble than she could possibly imagine.
He considered the problem briefly as he climbed the marble flights of the Weimar Opera Haus to his office. His Russian associates would be present for the weekend performance. That fact did not bother him so much as the complications arising this morning from the Liberian shipment. He brushed a scrap of lint from his sleeve. The Russians could be antagonistic and dangerous. A delay in the delivery would cost him and at the same time present his Slavic partners with an excuse to insert themselves into his operation.
Jutte was stationed in his reception foyer. She was a fat woman with short, black pigtails, and small, unsightly hairs growing in single follicles here and there on her face—‘bitch hairs’, the Americans called them. She was somewhere in her forties and closely resembled what she ate: sausages. Her lifestyle had yet to be influenced by any of the modern trends sweeping the continent—deodorants and the like—and her underarms, if one approached her closely, had the sour smell of infrequent bathing. She once swore forthrightly with a face flushed cherry red that she did indeed bathe once a day.
Well, what could he do? The woman was indispensable in the operation of the concert hall and loyal to a fault. Her knowledge of his other business was not complete, but she knew enough to be helpful in planning some of the logistics. He’d seen her put a meaty, greasy forearm around the neck of a client, one who she felt was not sufficiently respectful to her boss, and almost choke him to death.
She stood behind her desk as he walked into the office. “Herr Conductor, Herr Cottingham und Herr Martez sind heir!”
“Ja, danke, Jutte,” he replied, fingering his conductor’s baton. He liked the new design of the wand. It was a catalogue purchase from America made of titanium like the new golf clubs.
He stepped into his office and faced two seated individuals. Introductions were not necessary because he knew these men. One was a Columbian who had just that morning arrived from South America. The other man was British. There were too many British subjects in this operation for his tastes, but this one was an expert in the maintenance of airplanes and essential to the organization.
Schoenfeld moved to an antique maple desk and hitched his backside against the frontispiece. He took great pride in the fact that both Schiller and Goethe had sat behind the polished wood of this very piece of furniture over two hundred years before, perhaps as they wrote their masterpieces and contemplated existential questions of life and the German State. Unfortunately, he did not have the leisure or the inclination to consider such questions. As the managi
ng director of the theatre and the opera in the city of Weimar, Germany, there were plenty of everyday problems that occupied his time. However, coordinating regular cocaine shipments and transfers of Euros from the Russians eclipsed everything. There were diamonds involved, smuggled from the Mano River project. Liberia was a fountain of wealth. One simply had to control the people.
“So tell me,” Schoenfeld began in lightly accented English. “Which one of you is responsible for the failure of this delivery?” He slapped the baton in his palm and stared into their faces. “We are already two days late now, as you are both aware.” He stood to his full height and paced in front of the men in an odd forward-leaning stance, as if his sense of plumb had been permanently altered at birth. His posture, in addition to his thin face and large, sharp nose allowed some to characterize him in a manner that was not entirely positive.
The seated men were squeezed into period wingback leather chairs that rested on a floor of aged oak parquet. Repeated waxing over the years had left the floor with a rich, hard patina, and Schoenfeld could see the milky reflection of fading daylight from the leaded windows. He cocked his head. The opening notes of Beethoven’s Für Elise trickled faintly from a piano somewhere in the concert hall. The ‘C’ chord was slightly flat. The piano would have to be tuned.
“Señor Herr Conductor,” the first one started. “The original airplane was already packed. It was in Fortaleza and ready. I swear this to you!”
Schoenfeld looked at him casually, as a praying mantis might eye a slow mayfly. The man was a pompous, lazy-eyed Columbian whose every waking thought revolved around either drugs or women.
“I was not responsible for this,” the florid man stated emphatically. “Señor Azevedo in Fortaleza was the one responsible. He was the one who delayed the airplane.”
Schoenfeld stepped behind the man. The Columbian ran a fat hand through his greasy, black hair. A heavy gold chain circled his wrist. His fingers were weighted with diamond-studded rings. Gott in Himmel, why on earth did Schoenfeld ever think he could work with this piece of garbage?
He spoke softly into the man’s ear. “But you are responsible Señor Martez. This is the second time that a shipment originating in Fortaleza has been delayed. And I don’t have to tell you—” Schoenfeld pulled away as he caught the stench of the man’s nauseating cologne. The disgusting sour-sweet odor of apples lingered. He took a cleansing breath.
The Columbian glanced backward. “Yes, I admit to that, but I cannot help it if Señor Azevedo cannot make the airplane ready. I assure you that my part of the job—”
“Your part of the job is providing airplanes capable of delivering our packages!” Schoenfeld shouted in the man’s ear. He moved around to face the Columbian. “Just like the executives at FedEx,” he added in a whisper.
“Yes, and—”
“Except that you are providing old airplanes full of maintenance problems that cannot make the flights.”
“That is not true, Herr Conductor,” Martez said. His eyes slid around the room.
“My question to you, Señor Martez, is this...” Schoenfeld tapped the baton against his palm. “What have you been doing with the money that you were supposed to be using to acquire better airplanes?”
“I...” He swallowed. “I have all of the money Herr Conductor. It is in—”
“Your private bank account, I suppose.”
He cleared his throat. “I will be more than happy to—”
Schoenfeld straightened and whipped his baton forward in an arc that slashed into the side of the man’s head. The Columbian recoiled and screamed. Twice more the baton sliced downward. A line of scalp opened. White skull bone laid bare began to fill with blood. The man cried out again, this time in a quivering falsetto note of pain. Schoenfeld curled his lips. The fat man had a woman’s voice, although more correctly he would categorize the tonal quality as alto soprano.
Martez heaved himself upward. Schoenfeld was ready with his foot, and a hard kick to the solar plexus shoved him back into the chair. He took a breath as he listened to the man wheezing. “Get out,” he said. “Go back to your South American whores.” The baton twitched back and forth in front of the man’s face like a metronome of pain. “You are through here. Understand?”
The Columbian slowly pulled himself upright, his eyes wide, a hand on his head. He staggered to the door dripping blood on his collar. Without a backward glance he opened the door unsteadily and went out.
For a moment all was quiet. Not a sound came from the other man. Schoenfeld cast an eye toward him. The Briton was standing behind his chair, as if he was not going to allow the same treatment. He was tall and in his early fifties. His hair was completely gray, but he had lots of it, and a quick, ferret’s intelligence in his eyes. His steel-gray suit was an expensive Thomas Mahon—one of the few British tailors on Saville Row with any sense of style—and it covered an athletic build, as if he might have played some sport in the past.
Schoenfeld again tapped his baton. The Briton’s participation in the operation was crucial. A strange quirk of labor and customs regulations made it easier to repair and service aircraft in Britain than in Germany. Therefore, by default it was necessary to involve the British. The man standing before him resided near the Gatwick airport outside London, and he was a marvel at repairing airplanes.
“You’re not going to allow Martez to return to Columbia, are you?” the Briton said calmly.
“Where I send my executives is none of your business, Mr. Cottingham.” Schoenfeld moved to the heavy, casement windows and looked out onto the courtyard. The statues of Goethe and Schiller were thrust upward on a single pedestal from the sea of cobblestones in the courtyard. They were standing together, as if in a friendly discussion about some literary topic. He pulled the curtain of woven tapestry a few inches to the side. Young German backpackers and tourists from the former Eastern Bloc nations were hurrying past on their way to restaurants and beer halls. American visitors seldom came to Weimar. The city was what the Americans called ‘off the beaten path’, and there was no quaint, revolving Glockenspiel to take photos of as there was in, say, Munich. He stepped back to the antique desk and leaned against it. “I assume that you have a better reason for this latest delay.”
“Herr Schoenfeld,” the Briton said. “I can tell you definitely that first airplane Martez provided was barely flyable. The contract pilots refused it, and from what Señor Azevedo in Fortaleza has told me, it is doubtful the airplane could have made it across the ocean.”
Schoenfeld nodded, “I think we both know what may happen to Martez.” He let the statement hang for a moment. “So now we have a second airplane.” He ran a hand through his hair. “One that made it to Liberia, but now there is a problem with that one. Is that not the case?”
The Briton leaned forward onto the back of the chair. “Unfortunately that’s true Herr Schoenfeld. It’s in Monrovia now, and the same pilots refuse to take—”
“The pilots, the pilots!” Schoenfeld shouted. “We can shoot the fucking pilots and get some more! Verdamnt!” he said with a sharp cry. He cocked his elbow, and fired his baton against the far wall where it embedded in the thick, beech paneling. Feet apart, hands on his hips, he stared first at the far wall, then at Cottingham.
“Herr Schoenfeld, I think that this airplane may be flyable...from what I understand.”
The Conductor paced the room. “You know how it is packed. You know that we cannot unpack it in Liberia and repack another airplane. It won’t work. We have to have that airplane!” He scrutinized the Briton’s face. “You are going to go to Monrovia and you are going to fix that fucking airplane. Take the Learjet from the London office.” He pointed a finger. “I do not expect you to return until the airplane is repaired.”
Cottingham nodded sharply. “What about the pilots?”
“Can they be replaced?” Schoenfeld wiped a bit of spittle from the corner of his mouth. A glassy droplet smeared his thumb. He pulled a small square of linen f
rom his inside coat pocket.
Cottingham shook his head. “It would take days. Then we’d have to get them down there.”
Schoenfeld clenched a fist around the cloth. “Damn them! Put a gun to their heads if you have to. They’ll answer for this when they get the airplane to London, just like Martez is going to pay.” He marched over to the opposite wall and pulled the baton out of the wooden surface. He fingered the sharp point of the wand for a moment and narrowed his eyes on Cottingham. “Questions?”
“No, Herr Conductor.”
Schoenfeld touched a corner of his mustache. It was too soon to deal with Cottingham. The maintenance expert was still needed, until such time. “You can come with me,” he said amiably, as he focused on a point far away. “I’ll have to walk you through the atrium.”
6
Udo Kerschner sat on a red velvet cushion atop a stone bench. The first floor portico of the Grand Opera Haus in Weimar, Germany was deserted except for himself and his partner, an Engländer by the name of Higgs. The polished, marble floors and priceless stone and bronze inlays set into the walls created an echo chamber that bounced the slightest sound back upon itself. A wheeze, a cough, or the muted slap of a leather sole were magnified in the mortuary-like stillness of the hall.
He considered the fate of the two visitors in the office three floors above his head. The rules were simple: A man escorted to the exit by the Conductor—to one of the three massive, wooden doors framing the entrance portico—would leave unharmed, free to walk off into the night. Unescorted individuals were expendable, and on more than four occasions he had provided assistance in that regard.
Errand of Mercy: How far do you run, and where do you hide? Page 4